Stew.

Enter Steward.

A proclaimed prize! Most happy! That eyeless head of thine was first framed flesh To raise my fortunes.-Thou old unhappy traitor, Briefly thyself remember.'-The sword is out That must destroy thee.

Glo.

Put strength enough to it.

Stew.

Dar'st thou support a published traitor? Hence;
Lest that the infection of his fortune take

Like hold on thee. Let go his arm.

Edg. Ch'ill not let go, zir, without vurther 'casion. Stew. Let go, slave, or thou diest.

Edg. Good gentleman, go your gait, and let poor volk pass. And ch'ud ha' been zwaggered out of my life, 'twould not ha' been zo long as 'tis by a vortnight. Nay, come not near the old man; keep out, che vor'ye,3 or ise try whether your costard or my bat be the harder. Ch'ill be plain with you.

Stew. Out, dunghill!

4

Edg. Ch'ill pick your teeth, zir; come; no matter vor your foins.5

[They fight; and EDGAR knocks him down. Stew. Slave, thou hast slain me.-Villain, take my

purse;

If ever thou wilt thrive, bury my body;

And give the letters, which thou find'st about me,
To Edmund earl of Gloster; seek him out
Upon the British party.-O, untimely death.
Edg. I know thee well; a serviceable villain;

As duteous to the vices of thy mistress,

As badness would desire.

[Dies.

1 i. e. "quickly recollect the past offences of thy life, and recommend thyself to Heaven.'

2 Gang your gait is a common expression in the north.

3 i. e. I warn you.

4 i. e. head. A bat is a staff. It is the proper name of a walking-stick, in Sussex, even at this day.

5 i. e. thrusts.

Glo.

What, is he dead?

Edg. Sit you down, father; rest you.

Let's see his pockets; these letters, that he speaks of,
May be my friends.-He's dead; I am only sorry
He had no other deathsman.-Let us see:

Leave, gentle wax; and, manners, blame us not;
To know our enemies' minds, we'd rip their hearts;
Their papers, is more lawful.i

[Reads.] Let our reciprocal vows be remembered. You have many opportunities to cut him off; if your will want not, time and place will be fruitfully offered. There is nothing done, if he return the conqueror. Then am I the prisoner, and his bed my jail; from the loathed warmth whereof, deliver me, and supply the place for your labor.

Your wife, (so I would say,) and your affectionate servant,

O undistinguished space of woman's will!2-
A plot upon her virtuous husband's life;

GONERIL.

And the exchange, my brother!-Here, in the sands, Thee I'll rake up, the post unsanctified 3

3

Of murderous lechers; and, in the mature time,
With this ungracious paper strike the sight
Of the death-practised duke: for him 'tis well,
That of thy death and business I can tell.

[Exit EDGAR, dragging out the body. Glo. The king is mad. How stiff is my vile sense, That I stand up, and have ingenious feelings

Of my huge sorrows! Better I were distract;

1 i. e. to rip their papers is more lawful.

2 This seems to mean, "O, how inordinate, how unbounded, is the licentious inclination of women!"

3 "Thee I'll rake up, the post unsanctified," &c.

i. e. I'll cover thee. Unsanctified refers to his want of burial in consecrated ground.

4 That is, the duke of Albany, whose death is machinated by practice

or treason.

5 “Ingenious feeling." Bullokar, in his Expositor, interprets ingenious by quick-conceited, i. e. acute.

So should my thoughts be severed from my griefs;
And woes, by wrong imaginations, lose
The knowledge of themselves.

Edg.

Re-enter EDGAR.

Give me your hand;

Far off, methinks, I hear the beaten drum.
Come, father, I'll bestow you with a friend. [Exeunt.

SCENE VII. A Tent in the French Camp. LEAR on a bed asleep: Physician, Gentleman,' and others attending.

Enter CORDELIA and Kent.

Cor. O thou good Kent, how shall I live, and work, To match thy goodness? My life will be too short, And every measure fail me.

Kent. To be acknowledged, madam, is o'erpaid. All my reports go with the modest truth;

Nor more, nor clipped, but so.

Cor.

Be better suited.2

These weeds are memories 3 of those worser hours;

I pr'ythee, put them off.

Pardon me, dear madam;

Kent.
Yet to be known, shortens my made intent.1
My boon I make it, that you know me not,
Till time and I think meet.

Cor. Then be it so, my good lord.-How does the

king?

Phys. Madam, sleeps still.

Cor.

[To the Physician.

O you kind gods,

Cure this great breach in his abused nature!

1 In the folio, the gentleman and the physician are one and the same person.

2 i. e. be better dressed, put on a better suit of clothes.

3 Memories are memorials.

4 A MADE intent is an INTENT formed.

The untuned and jarring senses, O, wind up,
Of this child-changed father!'

Phys. So please your majesty, That we may wake the king? he hath slept long. Cor. Be governed by your knowledge, and proceed I' the sway of your own will. Is he arrayed? Gent. Ay, madam; in the heaviness of his sleep, We put fresh garments on him.

Phys. Be by, good madam, when we do awake him; I doubt not of his temperance.

Cor. Very well.

Phys. Please you, draw near.-Louder the music there.2

Cor. O my dear father! Restoration, hang Thy medicine on my lips; and let this kiss Repair those violent harms, that my two sisters Have in thy reverence made!

Kent.

Kind and dear princess!

Cor. Had you not been their father, these white

flakes

Had challenged pity of them. Was this a face
To be exposed against the warring winds?
[To stand against the deep, dread-bolted thunder?
In the most terrible and nimble stroke

Of quick, cross lightning? to watch (poor perdu!)
With this thin helm ?3] Mine enemy's dog,

Though he had bit me, should have stood that night
Against my fire; and wast thou fain, poor father,
To hovel thee with swine, and rogues forlorn,
In short and musty straw? Alack, alack!

1 That is, changed by his children; a father whose jarring senses have been untuned by the ingratitude of his daughters.

2 This and the foregoing speech are not in the folio. It has been already observed, that Shakspeare considered soft music as favorable to sleep. Lear, we may suppose, had been thus composed to rest; and now the physician desires louder music to be played, for the purpose of waking him.

3 The lines in crotchets are not in the folio. The allusion is to the forlorn hope of an army, called in French enfans perdus; amongst other desperate adventures in which they were engaged, the night-watches seem to have been a common one.

'Tis wonder, that thy life and wits at once

Had not concluded all.'-He wakes; speak to him. Phys. Madam, do you; 'tis fittest.

Cor. How does my royal lord? How fares your majesty?

Lear. You do me wrong, to take me out o' the

grave.

Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound

Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears
Do scald like molten lead.

Cor.

Sir, do you know me? Lear. You are a spirit, I know; when did you die? Cor. Still, still, far wide!

Phys. He's scarce awake; let him alone awhile. Lear. Where have I been? Where am I?-Fair daylight?

I am mightily abused.—I should even die with pity,
To see another thus.-I know not what to say.
I will not swear these are my hands :-let's see ;-
I feel this pin prick. 'Would I were assured
Of my condition.

Cor.

O, look upon me, sir,

And hold your hands in benediction o'er me.
No, sir, you must not kneel.

Lear.

Pray, do not mock me.

I am a very foolish, fond old man,

3

Fourscore and upward; and, to deal plainly,

I fear I am not in my perfect mind.

Methinks I should know you, and know this man :
Yet I am doubtful; for I am mainly ignorant

What place this is; and all the skill I have
Remembers not these garments; nor I know not
Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me;
For, as I am a man, I think this lady

To be my child Cordelia.

1 i. e. had not all ended.

2 I am strangely imposed upon by appearances; I am in a strange mist of uncertainty.

3 The folio here adds the words "not an hour more or less;" which have been regarded as the interpolation of some player.